These Boulder women are shaping the businesses and spaces we love. Meet the founders turning bold ideas into thriving ventures across the city. Their stories reveal what it really takes to build something lasting from the ground up.
Rainbow Shultz and Jamestown Mercantile
Rainbow still remembers the first time she walked through the doors of the Jamestown Mercantile; it felt as if the old wooden building already knew her name.
Her path to The Merc wound through social work and motherhood, through a lifelong belief that a shared meal is one of the truest forms of community care. When she became a mother, she saw a way to braid all of it together: food, art, story, fun, and the quiet work of listening into one small mountain gathering place. "In many ways," she says, "I remain a social worker at heart."
The Merc has poured coffee and welcomed neighbors in Jamestown since 1892, but its future now hangs in the balance. When Rainbow learned the property was going up for sale, she and fellow community members formed a nonprofit to buy it outright. It is a $1.5 million goal, with $150,000 raised so far through direct donations and a wave of joyfully inventive fundraisers.
For Rainbow, the stakes go beyond one building. As Colorado's old, funky gathering spots give way to development, she believes something essential slips away with them. "I think we lose a little bit of our community's soul," she says.
She's hoping the mountains help her prove otherwise.
To donate or get involved, visit SavetheMerc.org
Ma Ma's Table
Anna Zoe didn't know how to cook when she married at nineteen. Her first meal, by her own account, was terrible, but her husband called it delicious anyway, so she made it again, and again, all week, until she learned to make something else. That quiet insistence on trying became the foundation of one of Boulder's most beloved restaurants.
Raised in Tainan, Taiwan, Zoe eventually settled with her family in Missouri, where they ran a Chinese restaurant of their own. After her husband passed away, her son Edwin, determined to bring her closer and to share the home cooking he'd grown up on, so different from what restaurants served, invited her to Boulder. In 2010, the two opened Zoe Ma Ma together, built on her noodles, dumplings, and rice bowls rooted in Taiwan and the flavors of Shandong Province, her husband's home.
Now 81, Zoe has slowed from the days of hand-rolling hundreds of dumplings a day, but she still finds purpose in watching diners enjoy what she's made. Her advice for the work, relayed through Edwin, is simple: always put love into it.
That, more than any recipe, is what's on the menu.
Finding Andrea More: Megan Falley on Grief, Poetry, and What Doesn't Suck
After her 2018 collection, Drive Here and Devastate Me, Megan Falley was working mostly in prose and memoir, certain that was where she would stay. Then Andrea Gibson, her partner of nearly a decade and the beloved poet behind the blog Things That Don't Suck, died after a long cancer journey. The first thing Falley wrote afterward was a poem.
She calls these bursts "poetry emergencies," moments when a feeling or image strikes so hard she has to grab a pen before it disappears. It is a fitting description for grief itself, at once fleeting and permanent, small in form but bottomless in what it holds.
Falley has continued Andrea's blog since their death, describing the work as a kind of continuation rather than a memorial. She writes through Andrea's lens now, processing her own life through the question of what doesn't suck. It feels, she says, like keeping someone alive. She could not keep the breath in Andrea's lungs, but she can keep their words moving through the world.
Much of that world was built here, in Boulder and the foothills around it. Coot Lake, the Boulder Reservoir, Chautauqua Park, and the Sanitas Valley Trail all carry pieces of the life she shared with Andrea and their three dogs: Squash, Idgie, and Winnebago.
Their relationship is now the subject of a documentary streaming on Apple TV+, and Falley hopes viewers take away something beyond illness. The joy in their story was not separate from the cancer, she says. It was sharpened by it. Andrea's final years held laughter, devotion, and an almost athletic commitment to being alive.
"I also hope people, especially women, understand what a waste it is to spend our lives hating our bodies for how they look," Falley says. "A living body is not an aesthetic problem to solve. It is the place where every joy we will ever experience gets to happen. And, if we're lucky, every grief, too."
For Falley, that same refusal to treat pain as something separate from life extends to grief itself.
"Grief is a very welcome feeling for me," she says. "It feels so close to love, and so close to connection. It keeps me in relationship with Andrea rather than outside of it, so I never wish it away. I fear the end of grief. I hope to be in my eighties, crying over Andrea, while an onlooker mistakes it for fresh hurt, and I open my mouth to tell them an old story.
"That doesn't mean I won't be dancing, unraveling in laughter, or running into the ocean a minute after crying. My grief and my utter elation at being alive exist side by side, quite comfortably, really. Taking turns. Even holding hands."
AndreaGibson.Substack.com/p/The-Only-Thing-We-Have-Control-Over
Mariele Ivy: A Pilgrim on the Beauty Road
Mariele Ivy does not work in one material so much as she works in one instinct. Best known for her jewelry under Young in the Mountains, she moves just as fluently through ceramics and furniture and design, and the throughline across all of it is process. Her ceramics take on freestyle shapes that resist a single finished silhouette: stacks of bones, bodies, ebullient vases with knobby handles, each piece holding the aura of the hands that made it. The spaces she designs carry the same spirit, built to be lived in as much as looked at, nodding equally to function and to freedom.
Her work starts with listening, then talking, then a kind of designing that comes from somewhere authentic and internal, a well of inspiration peppered with literature, pop culture, psychology, mythology, fashion and fine art.
In addition to running YITM, her process is currently aimed at a show submission based on hammers. Mariele is inlaying stone daisies into the handles, a quiet nod to the pink tax, to women's work, to femininity showing up in tools that were not necessarily built with her in mind. When she needed to think it through, she didn't turn to chat; she called her dad, a boatmaker and her first teacher of inlay, someone who taught her this by hand long before it became her language.
Mariele’s mind is rarely at rest, always alight with some new potential, caught in the tension between contentment and possibility. She is a pilgrim on the beauty road, foraging, gathering, assembling, and making it glitter like gold.
For a private appointment: YoungIntheMountains.com
Running with Purpose: Nell Rojas
Some athletes chase personal bests. Nell Rojas chases something bigger: proof that the sport belongs to everyone.
Her breakout finishes at the Boston and New York marathons, where she claimed top American honors, were a long time coming. "I've always trained hard, and I love competing," she says. "It was like a cherry on top to do it at a high level against the best in the world." The momentum opened doors and gave her the confidence to take risks she might not have otherwise.
That same drive to help others led Rojas to build RISE after two decades of coaching alongside her own elite career. She started coaching right out of high school, drawn to a simple truth: how you show up for yourself in training shapes the rest of your life.
As a Latina in a sport that hasn't always reflected its runners, she works to change what young athletes believe is possible. Through a partnership with Renegade Running and ON Running, she helped build a team of twelve BIPOC sub-elite athletes chasing the Olympic Trials standard, backed by coaching, sponsorship, and community.
Her vision for women's empowerment is straightforward: the same confidence, opportunity, and investment given to men. "It will take more women demanding to be there," she says, "because they truly know they deserve to be."
Her advice to runners chasing their own breakthroughs? Patience. Growth comes gradually, and the lows matter as much as the highs.
Two Women, Zero Packaging: The Story Behind Nude Foods Market
For Verity Noble, the wake-up call came from an unlikely place: watching WALL-E with her kids, staring at an animated wasteland of discarded plastic. For Rachel Irons, it came on the Pacific Crest Trail, somewhere between blisters and long stretches of thinking about how broken our food system really is. For both founders, a conviction that sustainable, healthy groceries shouldn't be so hard to find.
When the two Boulder women met years later, they discovered their frustrations fit together like a lock and key. In 2020, they launched Nude Foods Market, a grocery store built around a simple but radical premise: that plastic-free shopping should be convenient and fun.
Their flagship Boulder store is located at 3233 Walnut Street, Boulder, CO 80301 (303-944-8992), open daily from 10 am to 7 pm. In 2026, they expanded within the city, opening a satellite location inside Moxie Bread Co. in North Boulder at 4593 Broadway. In 2024, they also opened a Denver northside location at 3538 W 44th Ave, open daily from 10 am to 7 pm.
Running the business together, they say, has been more intense and far less glamorous than either expected. Irons anchors operations and numbers; Noble drives storytelling and community. The differences create friction, and also make the partnership work. What surprised them most wasn't the mission-driven stuff, but the sheer operational complexity behind every jar on the shelf: sourcing, food safety, labeling, logistics. Their biggest lesson is that a mission people love isn't enough. The product, price, and experience have to bring customers back every week.
That lesson got a national spotlight on Shark Tank, where Kevin O'Leary and Robert Herjavec made the founders an offer for equity in the company. The two ultimately walked away from the deal, choosing instead to raise funding from their own community of believers. Since the episode aired, requests have poured in from New York to small towns in Montana, proof that the appetite for packaging free groceries reaches well beyond Boulder.
Their advice for women sitting on an idea? Don't wait to feel ready. Confidence doesn't come before action; it comes because you acted.
A Taste of Home: Lindsay Shaw Brings Deli Tradition and Downtown Spirit to Boulder
For Lindsey Shaw, owner of Lindsay's Deli and Häagen-Dazs in Boulder, food has never just been a business. It's a birthright. Born in Atlanta to a Jewish family with roots in New York, Lindsey grew up surrounded by the flavors and rituals of a food-loving household. Her parents owned a Häagen-Dazs shop, and some of her earliest and fondest memories are of scooping ice cream alongside her brother, learning early on what it meant to serve a community with warmth and consistency.
Lindsay came to Boulder for college at CU, and like so many students, she found herself falling for the mountains, the light, and the particular rhythm of life here. After graduating, she moved back to Atlanta, but Colorado never quite let her go. A year spent as a ski bum in Vail confirmed what she already suspected: her future was back in Boulder.
Today, Lindsay runs her namesake deli alongside a Häagen-Dazs shop, blending her family's ice cream legacy with her own deli tradition. But her investment in Boulder goes beyond her storefront. As an active member of the Boulder Restaurant Alliance, she's working alongside fellow business owners to breathe new life into Pearl Street and downtown Boulder, pushing for a district that feels vibrant, welcoming, and genuinely inclusive, where anyone can find a seat at the table.
For Lindsay, it's simple: good food and a good downtown should be for everyone.
Lanie and Emily of Walters & Hogsett Jewelers
A diamond is hard and beautiful at once. Lanie and Emily, co-owners of Walters & Hogsett Jewelers, carry that same duality between them. By their own admission, they are a study in opposites—running one of Boulder's most enduring jewelry shops not despite their differences, but because of them.
The Hive & The Journey
Lanie stumbled into the industry, growing into an introverted leader who oversees timepieces and operations while balancing teamwork with independent execution: "I'm collaborative, but pretty independent when it comes to getting things done." Emily, an extrovert with 28 years at the shop, lives fully in the hive, helping clients tell their stories through custom pieces. Everyone plays such a dynamic role... I feel very fortunate to be a part of it."
Getting Free
Lanie unwinds through tactile creation. "I'm a big DIY person—remodeling, tiling, fixing things, figuring out how to make something work, like watch movements!" Emily treasures connection: "I value every minute I spend with my family and friends, especially when it’s near water. I always want more!"
The Indulgences
Lanie favors a spirited education: "There's something really fun about learning the differences between bourbons, where they come from, how they're made." Emily’s delights are simpler: "Diet Coke & Sancerre. Not together!"
One builds, one bonds. In the space between meticulous mechanics and effortless warmth, the business finds its structure & sparkle.
From the Delivery Room to the Treatment Room: Dr. Ida Rastegar's Unconventional Path
When Dr. Ida Rastegar moved to Boulder fifteen years ago with her husband and three young children, she wasn't planning to leave clinical medicine behind. A faculty OB/GYN at UCLA, she'd built a career treating high-risk pregnancies and underserved populations in Los Angeles. But Boulder offered something her old life couldn't: a slower pace, a tight-knit community, and room to raise a family close to nature.
The part-time position she'd loved at UCLA didn't exist locally, and the demanding call schedules of local private practices clashed with three young children at home. So when her husband launched Rinnova Skin & Body, an aesthetics practice, Rastegar stepped in to run it, learning the business from the ground up, from hiring staff to preparing tissue samples.
That transition became something richer than office management. Rastegar began seeing patients herself, bringing her medical background to a field she felt was too often reduced to "beauty." She introduced diVa, a vaginal laser treatment that draws on her OB/GYN expertise to address sexual health concerns and incontinence, reframing rejuvenation as whole-body wellness rather than cosmetic enhancement.
The shift also changed the nature of her conversations with patients. Where her hospital years left little room beyond emergencies and surgeries, Rastegar now has time to discuss hormones, diet, and mental health, the fuller picture of a woman's well-being.
Running a business, she admits, is a skill medical school never taught her. The hardest part has been building the right team, though Rinnova's staff longevity (some aestheticians have stayed over a decade) speaks to what she's built.
Looking back, Rastegar couldn't have predicted this path from her days at Yale or Emory. But in Boulder, she's found a version of medicine that fits: one with room for both patients and the greenhouse seedlings waiting at home.
A Historic Beat: Cheryl Liguori on Music, Movies, and Keeping Boulder's Stages Alive
For Cheryl Liguori, the theater world started with music, and a fake ID. As a teenager sneaking into concerts, she found her way to a job at Wetlands Preserve, the legendary live music venue in New York City, and never looked back. Film came later, taking root during her college years, but it was those early nights in the crowd that shaped her path in live entertainment.
Today, she oversees two of Boulder's most storied venues, the Boulder Theater and The Fox Theatre, and this January brings a milestone: hosting Sundance Film Festival screenings. The partnership has been over a year in the making, with Sundance's team and Cheryl's collaborating closely so that once the festival arrives, the venue essentially becomes theirs to run, while her team supports behind the scenes. At The Fox, the focus is on weaving live music into the Sundance experience itself.
Looking back at the artists who've graced these stages, Cheryl still marvels at the list: Radiohead at The Fox, Post Malone at the Boulder Theater, along with icons like BB King, Moby, Johnny Cash, and Patti Smith.
Running historic venues, she says, is a full-time labor of love. The beauty and history can't be replicated in a modern room, but competing means constant investment: new sound and lighting systems, an ADA restroom underway this fall, last year's facade restoration, ongoing HVAC upgrades. It's a challenge her team embraces, one Cheryl credits to owner Doug Greene's vision in reviving the Boulder Theater back in 1995.
Elevated Ease: Dawn Chau's Two Decades of Building Homes That Work
When Dawn Chau brought her design studio to Boulder in 2017, she arrived with a perspective shaped by nearly two decades of work, including years in Denver and almost a decade in New York City. That broader lens made one thing clear right away: Boulder's approach to living is truly its own.
"Two decades ago, design was much more aesthetic-driven," she says. "Today, especially in Boulder, it's about performance and connection." Her clients live outdoors, so their homes need to flow into the landscape while standing up to mud, dogs, gear, and the pace of daily life. Environmental responsibility has become part of that equation too, with clients asking real questions about efficiency and material safety. The result is a style she describes as elevated ease: casual and low maintenance, but never short on refinement.
Chau's path to design wasn't conventional. She grew up surrounded by parents who were always building something, and in high school she built a wood futon so heavy it followed her, reluctantly, through every apartment move that came after. Years later in New York, a woodworking class in Brooklyn led to sharing shop space with incredible craftsmen, including the founders of Hellman Chang. She quickly realized that honing furniture making to the level of mastery she desired would take a decade or more of dedicated practice, but the hands-on experience permanently changed how she designs, giving her a practical eye for how custom elements actually get built and lived in.
That practicality extends to sustainability, which she boils down to three principles: natural materials, American-made goods, and furnishings built to last decades rather than seasons. Colorado's community of local artisans makes that easy, she says, giving each piece a story her clients actually connect with.
Above all, her work is built on trust. She still designs for her very first client from 2004, a relationship that has spanned four homes and two decades. It's proof, she says, that when clients let go and trust the process, that's when the real transformation happens.
Meg Gardner: Rooted and Rising at Shining Mountain
Meg Gardner spent 18 years as a teacher, helping students become independent thinkers with the courage to lead purposeful lives. Today, as School Director of Shining Mountain Waldorf School, she brings that same commitment to the well-being and growth of the entire school community. Her leadership is guided by a vision of creating a place where people can do their best work and where everyone can say, “I am known here. I belong here. I can grow here.”
Leading a classroom also taught Gardner to take the long view. In Waldorf education, teachers “loop” with their students, continuing as their main classroom teacher for many years. Spending so much time with one child showed her that you should never define someone by one difficult moment or challenging season; they are always becoming who they are, and trusting that to unfold over time was key. Gardner brings that same perspective to leading Shining Mountain, knowing that meaningful change requires vision and direction, but also patience, trust, and time.
Under her leadership, Shining Mountain has bucked a citywide trend. As Boulder enrollment softens across many schools, hers has grown 13 percent in the past year, a shift Gardner attributes to families searching for something increasingly rare: a childhood protected from screens and saturated instead with curiosity, creativity, and real human connection. Rather than compete with artificial intelligence, the school is doubling down on what only humans can offer. That question—How do we stay human in a technological age?—now anchors the school's annual Human Advantage Summit, this year themed “Creating, Not Consuming.”
The roots of Waldorf education are over a century old, yet Gardner has found innovative ways to adapt the curriculum to today’s changing world. She introduced digital citizenship into the curriculum years before most schools considered it, and today her high schoolers study bioinformatics, debate climate data, and have built their own supercomputer, dispelling the myth that Waldorf students don’t embrace or interact with new technology.
Off campus, Gardner recharges the way many Boulder residents do, on 14ers, in the backcountry, on cross-country skis. She credits the mountains with teaching her patience and presence, but her deep sense of resolve goes back even further, to growing up on the Oklahoma plains where daily viola practice taught her that true mastery requires showing up consistently. Whether scaling a 14er, mastering an instrument, or leading Shining Mountain, she carries that same perseverance into every decision she makes.
To learn more, visit ShiningMountainWaldorf.org and HumanAdvantageSummit.org